Insight

Low
This Hint is of the lowest significance, and should only be addressed if there are not more serious issues which have not been handled.
Issue
This Hint represents an error or problem that needs to be fixed.

Character set not specified in <head> or headers

URLs that do not specify the character set in the <head> or HTTP Headers.

Why is this important?

It is important to specify a character set as early as possible (ideally in the HTTP response headers) to allow the browser to begin parsing HTML and executing scripts immediately. Without specifying a character set the browser is left to figure it out on its own, which takes time and therefore negatively impacts page load times.

What does the Hint check?

This Hint will trigger for any internal URL that does not contains a charset in the HTTP headers, nor in the <head>of the HTML.

How do you resolve this issue?

It is recommended to always specify the character set on the server-side whenever possible, via the HTTP headers.

Alternatively, if you do not have access to your server, ensure that the meta charset is the very first element in the <head>.